


A Flower Born to Blush Unseen

by aquantumkitten



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Aro/Ace Mary, Asexual Mary, Autistic Mary, Gen, Jane Austen literary style, Mary Bennet is actually a decent person, Mary becomes a governess, Platonic Relationships, Struggling against her society, complicated family relationships, governess, platonic marriage, societal pressure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25299652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquantumkitten/pseuds/aquantumkitten
Summary: Mary struggles socially after Lydia, Lizzie, and Jane marry and leave, but she finds comfort in her books and her dreams of becoming a governess. When her mother pushes a recently widowed vicar on her as match, will Mary be able to withstand social pressures and pursue her dreams?
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet & Mary Bennet, Kitty Bennet & Mary Bennet, Kitty Bennet/Original Male Character(s), Mary Bennet & Original Male Character, Mr. Bennet/Mrs. Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Mrs. Bennet & Mary Bennet
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> When I read Pride and Prejudice, I was pretty convinced that Mary had Aspergers syndrome. (Takes one to know one). She's often one of the least-liked characters in P&P, but I actually really liked her and thought she was just misunderstood. She clearly is intelligent and has strong convictions, and I got the sense she was more genuinely confused and unaware rather than maliciously looking down her nose at others. So I've written this fic where she is Autistic and Aro/Ace and struggling against the limitations of her society...and gets the happy ending that I felt she deserved :)
> 
> I really tried hard to imitate Jane Austen's style--I had a lot of fun writing this. I also drew on another one of my favorite novels, Jane Eyre, for the governess subplot.
> 
> I originally wrote this piece as part of NaNoWriMo 2016, but I didn't write the ending until just this week (epic procrastination. I know).

“Many a flower is born to blush unseen  
And waste its fragrance on the desert air”

I dip my pen into the inkpot to carefully scratch out the final r of my extract. The words are written upon a piece of fine heavy paper, well-selected and assembled before me, imprinted still deeper onto my mind for the time I have spent on them. I have made something of use; something which is orderly; something which has reason. Would but the same could be said for my own life. 

So absorbed am I in my reflections that I am utterly deaf to a heavy stomping noise just outside the library door.

It is Catherine, my sister. “Mary! Mary! Oh, dear me, I thought I should never find you, you hid yourself from me so well!”

I feel a not indefinite pang for my broken quietude. Somewhat irritated perhaps, I turn to Catherine, affecting an air of great importance. “What is it this time, Kitty? I was engaged in making an extract before you interrupted me.”

“Well, then,” Catherine sighs with a casual gesture, “go on if you must. But I have just received a letter from Lizzy—she’s to come and visit us in but a fortnight. And, what is better still, Jane and Bingley shall accompany them for the first day!”

“Indeed,” I muse. Elizabeth and especially Jane were always good to me. Perhaps a visit would be well. “A visit from Eliza and Jane? We sisters, then, shall be quite reunited. We shall be able all the better to pour the balm of sisterly affection into one another’s bosoms for our present sufferings and joys, as we did of old.”

Catherine frowns and gazes at the ground, her eyebrows furrowing to great tension. Her lips tighten. She is silent for a moment. Then she raises her gaze to look me directly in the face. Her countenance changes quite suddenly. “Honestly Mary!” she sighs with a subtle indication of—what is it—frustration? or perhaps anger? —in her voice. “Why must you always moralize so? Dear Lydia certainly fails to hold up to your notions of what a ‘proper lady’ ought to be” (her voice raises, I vaguely sense that she means my words as reproach to me), “but you insist on blotting her out from existence! She may be no sister of yours, but she is my sister! My…my…my friend.” Catherine sniffs. Sniffing accumulates into sobs. The sobs grow louder. A large tear forms in her eye.

Lydia’s name stands between us like a monument: to grief and shame, it is true, but in equal proportion to love. Of course Lydia and Catherine were bosom companions—who better to know than I? I blush. Why? Why must I always speak the wrong words, do the wrong things? I never meant to diminish Lizzy in Darcy’s estimation that disastrous night at the piano. I desired to entertain—or rather I was transported by the music, just as I am transported by making extracts. I was blind. Much as Catherine irritates me at times, I should never, not in an eternity, wish her an iota of distress. She is my dear sister, too. Even Lydia is my dear sister. But who will understand this? Why must my every social engagement be such an unrelenting series of blunders? Why?

“My…My…” I pause. I then glance over my volumes of poetry and essays and extracts, as though some wise word will thereby announce itself in my mind. I feel very fully the largeness and emptiness of the room, the manifest presence of Catherine in front of me, and, distant but distressing, her sorrow. “My humblest apologies for any pain my expressions may inadvertently have caused,” I eventually force out. Even as I speak it is awfully apparent that I have blundered.

Catherine’s sobs stop. She merely stares at me, eyes stained by tears. Her gaze is very intense and bears a trace of the accusatory. “Mary, why must you be so dreadful?” She turns away from me and runs up the stairs; as she goes, she lets out a high wail.

I turn to my extract again. Many a flower is born to blush unseen. Nobody sees me as I blush for the tears I have caused poor Kitty. I intensely desire to pick up a book of moral writing, perhaps poetry. These at least are the words that I understand, on whose virtue I even pin my hopes of improvement. For it is apparent I must improve my facility among people. How? I think myself clever, learned, yet this is not enough for ladies and gentlemen.

Elizabeth always possessed those graces which I sorely lack. She was the witty one, who drew her sketches of human character from mere observation, with as fine a touch as even my beloved moral writers. I daresay we were the most like to one another of the sisters, though this somehow never lead to close friendship. But I should very much like to see her again, I reflect. She brings an air of living intellectualism which, in this year since her removal to Pemberley as Mrs. Darcy, I have begun to sorely miss. And Jane at least had the decency to never reproach me. She may have been deficient in the making of moral distinctions—but even that fault I can forgive. Strange how, when my sisters lived with me I often thought them silly, and now they are gone I see them in a far more charitable light. It is indeed a profound peculiarity of the human character, upon which the moralists are fond of commenting. 

Elizabeth is soon to deliver her first child. Jane is farther from this particular felicity. And Lydia, poor disgraced thing, has a daughter and a second child on the way and is, as we had expected upon her marriage to Wickham, in a state of hopeless penury. Kitty expressed the wish to visit Lydia several times: only one visit was accomplished, however, and that was with the whole family, so that Catherine, who came I know not how close to following Lydia’s own missteps, could never be so waylaid. What a picture of female virtue disgraced, I thought as I walked into the low house the unfortunate pair now inhabits. I called them by several such names; yet, in spite of all pronouncements I made to myself I confess I felt a pure flush of pity. Even my words failed me then. After the visit, I took it upon myself to protect Catherine from such a life, each day enjoining moral encouragement upon her. But she far prefers Elizabeth’s and Jane’s company to my own. And I must admit their smiles and nods have done more for her virtue than all my careful study ever seemed to effect. I am more often than not the only daughter of the five left in the house. Mama does not care for my insights; Papa perhaps does, but he is his typical light and quick self. Now that the other daughters are gone, Mama and Papa speak of them more often. Jane is sweet, and beautiful; Elizabeth is clever; Kitty and Lydia have vivacity. What is left for me to do, or to be: that is the question that vexes me every day and drives me again and again to my books.


	2. II

“Jane darling! How lovely it is to see you again! And Bingley in such high spirits too! Elizabeth, you’ve grown so very big. Only a matter of time until the little one comes. What a fine thing, two grown daughters with children on the way! I am to be a grandmother in a trice, now!”

“Yes, and I take it that should the child be a girl you’ll set about finding her a husband in no time.”

“Mr. Bennet, why must you needle so? Oh, this is a most splendid thing, all of us together! Come Kitty, give your sisters a kiss.” 

Catherine does so. “Lizzy, how was your journey?”

“Fair enough, as journeys go.”

“Rather uncomfortable, I’d imagine, in your condition! I should certainly never travel in such a state!”

“Ah, Kitty, when a married woman has as many relations scattered across England as I do, I think it scarcely possible to avoid, however inconvenient!” she laughs.

“It was extraordinarily brave of you to join us for this visit, Lizzy. How is Mr. Darcy?”

“Very well. He is managing the estate well, which of course is the very thing to put him in a good humor, getting real work done! (I know him so well). He has been so very helpful as we prepare for the baby. Never in obvious ways, no, but he sent me his own old nurse to speak to me about the nursery. Jane, Mr. Bingley, how have you been?”

“Oh, in the best of spirits, for what else could a man be in this best of company? No, truly, I mean it, Lizzy, you are quite a sister to me. Anyone dear to Jane is dear to me, and I find you such pleasant company besides!”

“And how are your estates, I might ask?”

“We have just hired a new gardener, a most stout-hearted meticulous sort of man. Why, he’ll have the gardens looking quite as fine as Lady de Bourgh’s!”

“I certainly hope, dear brother, that your gardener lives up to that glowing reputation! But I’m afraid your benevolent fancy might be doing most of the work there. At any rate, Lady de Bourgh’s estates are hard to rival.”

“The fancy, or imagination, is apt to”—I interject.

“The finest garden in all of England!”

“I wouldn’t presume to make such pronouncements, Kitty, as your experience of gardens is rather limited.”

“It might be less so if you would let me travel, Papa!”

“The…fancy…is apt…” I mumble.

“Where is Mr. Darcy, anyhow?”

“On a business trip, but he will join us shortly.”

“That man! Always on some business or other. It is intolerable!”

“Well, Mama, he did marry me and that is no small weight in his favor.”

“And your dear mother shall never go wanting for a home in her old age! Oh, how splendid!”

“You mustn’t assume, dear. I may very well survive you.”

“Mr. Bennet, have pity on my poor, poor nerves! Oh, Lizzy, it is a fine thing indeed, and a child on the way to add to the joys. But dear, you must spare my nerves and not have the wretched foolishness to entail the estate away on an unheard-of cousin like a certain someone.”

“Mr. Darcy and I have discussed it. We fully intend to make the little girl, should there be one, heiress to Pemberley.”

“Ah delightful! Delightful!”

“A young lady,” I enjoin, “who possesses an independent fortune, must surely be a content being, free from the pecuniary concerns that so gnaw at her internal fortitude. Independence is a fine thing for the moral character, provided it not lead one to a heightened sense of pride and insolence due to the consequence of one’s position, which”—

“Mary, this is a time for celebration, not a lecture!”

“Kitty dear,” Jane sighs, “do please let Mary finish what she had to say. I should hate to have our sister cut off.”

Catherine looks down. “I am sorry, Mary. Please continue,” she says quietly, with an air of humility. Jane and Elizabeth have proven a beneficial influence on her. Catherine was always of a more reflective character than Lydia, but they have given it greater consistency. 

“Yes, show your manners!”

“I was about to add, that a high position carries with it the danger of excessive vanity and self-consequence, though a sense of pride and regard for one’s actions, when restricted to one’s own self, is an admirable quality of character. Of course, all things must be taken in moderation.”

“Very good, Mary; I daresay your advice is sufficiently vague to satisfy every person in the room,” Papa replies. “Now, shall we sit down?”

Mama sits immediately, followed by the others. I stand off from the couch. “Mary, will you sit down?”

I feel their gaze. I sit.

“Tell me, Mr. Bingley, how are your sisters?”

“Oh, both in excellent health. I had it it in a letter from Caroline that she has a suitor in possession of a decent fortune, six thousand a year she said.”

Jane’s face turns paler and she glances down at her feet. Her physiognomy suggests a certain degree of discomfort. There was some past ill-will, so far as I can determine, though how the slight should have occurred is quite beyond me. Elizabeth, it seems, shares in the knowledge.

“Miss Bingley can be quite charming when she so wishes!”

“My dear Elizabeth, my sister is always a charming lady!”

“Yes, but she applies her charms with a distinct purpose.”

I rise from the couch and wander towards the library. The conversation goes on quite uninterrupted, talk of children and domestic felicity, of estates and fortunes, of charming ladies and interesting letters. I shall leave and do something useful. But I cannot think of any new extracts to make. Perhaps a walk around the gardens. I push the door open gently. It closes on the low hum of the chatter and I am alone on the walkway. It is quiet.


	3. III

I ramble through the hedges for about an hour, thinking, thinking. Thinking about—I know not what. My mind is quite empty. I return to the Longbourne dining room just as the servants set out the first course, a simple soup. I am not especially hungry but I seat myself and stare into the soup bowl, absently rubbing the fork as though wishing to write with it. 

“That dreadful Napoleon’s forces grow stronger by the week! I say, it seems he will have all Europe for his lawn in no time!”

“Have no fears, my dear. Our navy is still the very best in on the earth. Certainly, Napoleon’s sheer daring and his excellent supply lines give him victories on the continent, but I can assure you that England’s sea power shall always be the envy of the world. As long as we have Nelson, nothing seems to go wrong for us!”

“Nevertheless I still feel reassured by the return of the volunteer regiment to Meryton.” Catherine tilts her head towards Jane as she says this. She will ask for a wretched ball, I imagine. 

She does not. 

“Oh, I remember two years ago when the regiment was here. Such great fun the girls had with the soldiers, remember now?”

Catherine blushes. I presume it to be a blush of shame.

“A little too much fun, as I recall,” Papa mumbled. “All balls and officers and such silliness that it gives me a headache to even recall it.”

“We were young, Papa. We could hardly help our silliness,” Catherine replies quietly.

“And our Kitty grows to be a finer, more sensible young lady by the day!” Mr. Bingley interjects. Catherine smiles. 

The conversation stretches on. By now it is clear I am simply casting pearls upon swine by attempting to make any moral statements. At any rate, my mind is still filled with the blankness of my garden walk. A vague sentiment that I could not make myself useful or pleasant, no matter what my wit—and a growing desire for solitude. Yet I sit and listened and think all of the talk rather silly. Lizzy least silly of the party, Lizzy generalizing her way through their pretensions. And Catherine. Catherine seemed to have more of real substance to offer than at any other time I had heard her converse. She remarked on the war—without so much as alluding to an army officer. She listened to the men’s discussion of the wheat crop for next spring. She stopped herself just short of a rude comment about Caroline Bingley. She even attempted to engage a discussion of Alexander Pope, of which she had not the slightest understanding, but consented to let me expound upon Pope’s remarks on pride in “On Man.” My breast was filled with warm sentiments upon this. I wondered how it was that Catherine was not able to be so improved all the time. Perhaps the influence of Jane and Elizabeth was making itself felt in this particular instance? It is human nature to wish to appear worthy to one’s superiors in age and consequence, as well as to those who are especially in our affections.

By the night’s end, the conversation has returned to the officers. “Are the regiment new or are they the same fellows we knew before?”

“The same faces. Colonel Forster, Colonel Carter, Colonel…” Catherine colors. 

“I am sure they will have many interesting things to tell us of their adventures! And of course our interest will be heightened because of our standing friendship with them,” Catherine exclaims.

“Are there any particular friends of yours among the regiment?” asks Bingley.

“Too many,” Papa mutters. I only hear him because I am seated beside him.

“Don’t be so difficult, dear,” Mama whispers back.

Kitty turns towards Papa very meekly, gazing upon her hands. “Yes, there are. And, Mama, Papa, I wished to ask a great favor of you. Would you be so kind as to invite Colonel Carter to dine some time soon?”

“Colonel Carter! Why Carter? I was under the impression one redcoat was not particularly distinguished from another.”

“Well…Carter was a particular friend of mine, and I thought it would be pleasant to hear from a friend who can tell us firsthand of how the war goes. Papa, surely you are curious?”

“I read all about the war in the news.”

“But, it would be particularly interesting to have it first-hand”—

“Kitty, you have charmed me very well with your rationality tonight. I am honestly quite surprised that all this was for an army officer!”

“Papa,” she protests. But she looks down again and sighs.

“Worry not, Kitty,” Mr. Bingley adds. “If your Papa is too busy to host Colonel Carter, why, I have nothing to do this Sunday evening, so I shall invite both of you to dinner at Netherfield! And, if arrangements can be made fast enough, perhaps we can have a ball too.”

“Thank you so very very much,” sighs Catherine, nearly weeping but smiling. For relief? “You are extraordinarily kind.”

“What else?” says Elizabeth. “Mr. Bingley’s business in life is to be unequivocally and vigorously kind to the whole world.” She smiles ironically. Mama is in a veritable hysterics of delight. 

“Well, now that all that is settled, do let’s play cards!” enjoins Bingley.

I pick up my skirts and wander into the drawing room, fingering the deck. Catherine was so very rational, so humble, even when she introduced the subject of carter. Yet she has obtained what she desired. Did she merely put on a charade, then? Does she consider me undeserving of her improved charms? This will require much reflection for me to understand. The thought that she has deceived us is quite unsubstantiated, yet even so, it strikes like the poet’s “slings and arrows. If I were that weak-tempered sort of girl, I might weep. Instead I shuffle the card deck and attempt to conjure up what Pope would say about such a scene.


	4. IV

Letters. Catherine has been dining every week now with the Bingleys and Colonel Carter. And they say Catherine and Carter dance together at every ball and her eyes “sparkle.” Elizabeth now has an infant daughter, christened Jane. Lydia has two children and no money. Elizabeth writes to tell us that though Mr. Darcy vows against it, he still sends the Wickhams a portion of his own revenues—to support the little ones. 

And interminable talk. One of our Phillips cousins has put in her advertisement for Harley street, the governesses’ charitable organization. “What a pitiable thing, governessing!” Catherine exclaims. 

Mama concurs. “As though fathers had nothing to give their own daughters! Or the poor girls had no suitors! Dreadful indeed!” 

“Hardly proper for genteel young ladies besides,” sniffs Mrs. Long. But then the talk must turn to one day finding a governess for little Jane. 

In the daily newspaper I chance upon an advertisement seeking a governess. An accomplished young lady of upright character wanted, must play pianoforte, speak French and Italian, know some geography, a little mathematics. Send letter to 121 Grosvenor Street.” When Papa has cast the paper aside, I unobtrusively cut out the advertisement, convey it to my room, and read it again and again. 

There are congratulations all about for the incredible felicity of having two daughters married off to young men of outstanding fortune and good character besides. And enquiries as to when shall our friend Mrs. Bennet be blessed with the marriage of the next daughter? (The disgraced daughter is of course never mentioned, as such a fallen young lady ought not to be. Or perhaps it is that the piercing sentiments of pain and shame and pity intermingled that arise when she is recalled do not belong in dining-rooms with distinguished neighbors). “I daresay it is only a matter of time until Kitty marries!” Mama proclaims. But no, they reply, we mean the current Miss Bennet. Miss Mary.

Parson Brown’s wife has recently died. I attended the funeral and was moved by the gravitas of Brown’s eulogy of his own departed wife, and by the ceremony. The Browns were strangers to me. I could not weep for her fate, but did reflect for a very long time on the great transience of human life, how we must bear our woes and joys in that “shadow of the valley of death.” Meryton wears black for a few days: Parson Brown, for the greater part of the season.

Talk quickly turns to the fact that Parson Brown is single.

Winter passes. Mama and Papa invite him to Longbourn to dine. To become closer acquaintanced. Especially, to meet their daughter, an accomplished young lady who makes great study of the pianoforte, reads moral philosophers, and possesses the most upright habits—Miss Mary Bennet.

***  
It is early in the afternoon, and I once again study the governess advertisement. I never had a governess myself. But I read and write—though not in French (that would be dreadfully unpatriotic in these times!)—and know a little mathematics, and German or Italian could surely be learned easily enough? As for geography: I can commit many things to memory and have already taught myself the capital cities of every country in Europe. I am very practiced on the pianoforte, playing with great affect. “Upright moral character.” Surely, the most important lesson for a growing young lady? I place my hand beneath my chin and contemplate. Good examples were wanting for Lydia. Papa seldom involved himself; Mama’s example was the picture of silliness and frivolity. Had Lydia some one older and wiser to shape her, impart upon her sound habits from the earliest moments of her life when she was what Locke terms a “tabula rasa,” she might have been saved from her tragic fate. To form and shape a young girl—to live a useful life—I begin to entertain brave ideas. But how to go about it? They are mere fancies.

Mama knocks on my bedroom door. “Mary? Mary, come now! I must speak with you.” I rise and meet her.

“Yes, Mama?”

“You know we are to have a visitor—a single man?” She nearly hisses the word single, and inflects it with great excitement.

“Yes, Parson Brown, though I cannot understand what is so special about his being single.”

“Mary, please do not be so obtuse! You know fully well what this means. I wanted to tell you, Mary, that when he comes, you must do your best to be charming.”

“And how shall I go about doing that?”

“Good heavens! That should seem obvious!”

“It is not. Please elucidate.”

“Oh, very well then. You must have very nice manners, and you must attend to everything Mr. Brown says, and when you speak of the moral philosophers you so worship, you should bring them up, say something reasonably witty, and then hold your tongue before carrying on into a lengthy lecture. When Parson Brown remarks on anything, it will appear more pleasing if you agree with him and listen rather than speak.”

“May I ask questions about doctrine?”

“Ask whatever you please, so long as you prove a decent conversationalist! And do not neglect your face. I want smiles, cheery eyes, no dour frowns!” 

I must appear confused. She draws in her breath. “Mary, what I am trying to tell you is that there is more to charm than high sentiments and formal manners. Whatever you have learned about people that was not from a book—avail yourself, please. Your poor mama’s nerves depend on it.”


	5. V

“I am most highly honored to make your acquaintance, Reverend Brown, and I offer my utmost condolences for your deceased wife.”

“Thank you, Miss Bennet. What a fine dinner we have here!”

“Yes, yes, do sit down.” Mama motions for me to sit next to Reverend Brown. I sit. Mr. Brown begins to converse with Papa about the crops. I push about my stew with my spoon. Mama makes a variety of winks at me, and Catherine’s eyebrows are wide in something of a pleading aspect. “Go on, speak,” she mouths.

Mama loudly states, “But, my dear man, you truly ought to speak to our daughter, Miss Bennet, about that!”

The parson turns to me. “So, you are the Miss Bennet I have heard such fine things about?”

“I believe I have already introduced myself to you, sir?”

“Yes.” There is a pause. We return to our separate soups.

Some time later, Parson Brown asks, “Mary, how are your sisters Elizabeth and Jane? I recall it was I who married them in the parish. The former, especially, seemed the very picture of felicity.”

“They are well, sir. Elizabeth has an infant daughter.”

“I see. Oh, I do miss knowing the news of my parishioners! How far and wide you ladies spread!” 

“A dutiful young bride should indeed go where her husband goes.”

“A quotation from the Book of Ruth, Miss?”

“Yes. I have made several extracts from Scripture, and I pride myself extensively on the great usefulness and moral improvement I have brought to my own life thereby. Would that every young lady had that strength of character.”

“Excellent, excellent. On the subject of young ladies, I wonder what ever became of the youngest, Lydia?”

“She made a most abominably bad match, and has condemned herself to a life of desolation and destitution through his bad character and extravagant habits. We seldom speak of the unfortunate Lydia. However, Mr. Darcy ensures through his own funds that the little Wickhams shall not suffer for the sins of the mother!”

Reverend Brown is silent. His eyebrows pull closer together and he squints. “I see,” he utters in a low tone. “I see.” 

“Oh, Mary!” interrupts Mama. “Lydia is not so down-and-out as that! She did get properly married, only in a different parish, and she is living a perfectly pleasant life, and Mr. Wickham, I must say, is a charming fellow, most endearing and pleasant-mannered.” 

“I should hope Mrs. Wickham’s situation not to be too dire—to be clear, for the children’s sake. Being a father of three little children, I have an especial concern for them.”

“Three children?” I ask. 

“Yes, three children. Susanna, Edward, and Anne. The eldest is but eleven.”

“I wonder,” I ask, “if it may be well to hire a governess for them. With the passing of the dear mother, and the girls having attained a sufficient age, I would think it fitting for the children to have an upright female to provide loving affection and moral instruction for them.”

“That may be well, that may be well. But, Miss Bennet, you appear to take an interest in the profession of governessing itself.”

“I take a considerable interest in it. I think it an admirable profession, though of course other ladies consider mere idling to be more noble. I however, consider any sort of mentally active life to be best. In truth,” I pause. Perhaps I have already said too much. Yet I continue. “I sometimes even fancy I should like myself to be a governess.”

“A most unusual attitude for a lady of your station.”

“I have never especially esteemed the attitudes of society so much as those of the great philosophers.”

“Ah, do you now? I think, Miss Bennet, that your view of governessing is entirely too romantic. Since the passing of my dear wife, I have wondered what would happen to my children if I should die—and have resolved therefore to have Susanna trained: but only, it is to be understood, to provide for the younger two. It is a very lonely position, and generally taken only by young ladies in already dire straits.”

“So, then, you consider it impossible to take on that occupation undertaken out of a pure sense of duty?”

“I think those young ladies who go out as governesses do so out of a sense of duty to their families, clergy folk with no other recourse for additional income—no one takes on such sufferings for mere abstract moral sentiment. But your sense of duty is becoming nevertheless.”

Catherine nudges Mama, who grins and nods excitedly. Not one of her raptures of delight again. 

“Indeed,” I posit. “And perhaps then the loss of your wife has turned out to be a blessing for all, for it has taught us all to have a greater sense of duty and forbearance in the face of this vale of tears. Adversity brings out the best in man.” It very soon dawns on me that I have misspoken. Parson Brown pales and becomes silent. Catherine blushes deeply and puts her head in her hands. Mama pauses with food half in her mouth, a most unlovely sight. Papa’s countenance is harder to make out. Nobody speaks for several moments.

“My wife,” begins Parson Brown slowly, “was so dear to me, I cannot see her loss as anything but a sorrow for the children and me, no matter how much talk of ‘forbearance’ there may be.”

I wish very much to speak, but I am dumb. What other consolation can I give? How does one console? What I have said is surely how the philosophers would speak. And yet it is just as I have felt seeing Lydia—the faces before me, the pity they arouse, overcome all my thought, all my rationality, and I know neither what to say nor how to act. 

“Well,” Mama interjects, “It’s not as if there were no young ladies on the face of the earth!” And she glances in my direction. Catherine crimsons deeper and presses her face further into her hands. Some color even comes into Papa’s face. The parson pales still further.

“Parson Brown,” Catherine raises her head and asks, “how are the parsonage gardens?”

Very slowly and with much hesitation, he gives an account of the present state of the gardens (quite good, quite good. Then he goes into inordinate detail). Papa continues to engage him. Mama casts glances in my direction. Mr. Brown checks his pocketwatch several times. So the hour passes.

We all bid him farewell. He hastens out of the house.

“And do send letter any time you wish to return!” shouts Mama after him.

“I thank you, madam, but I believe there shall be no need of that.” He departs.

Mama turns on me. “Mary, how could you say such a dreadful thing? You have quite driven him off! I told you to use your charm. I told you to smile, be witty, and I do not know nor care to know how it is that you can so wilfully ignore your poor mother’s admonishments but I am most displeased! And to think, dear, you were so close to having the man in the palm of your hand! ‘Becoming,’ he said you were. Then—oh mercy me!”

“My dear,” said Papa, “let us give credit where credit is due. I do not believe your remark about the world being full of eligible young ladies was especially appropriate to the circumstances either.”

“Mr. Bennet, why must you needle me so!”

“I merely tell the truth.”

“Oh heavens!”

She turns on me again. “Mary, you are fully aware that Catherine shall receive a proposal any minute now, and that in society the elder daughter always marries first. And you insist on driving away every respectable man we throw at you! Will you take anyone?”

“I might have taken Mr. Collins, had he asked. He seemed to me as though he would make a rational companion.”

“Mr. Collins! That dreadful pretender! Oh, mercy me, girl, you have no sense! Catherine must marry, and you must not so wilfully hold her back and condemn her to the convent!”

My temper is normally even, rational; but now, I am stirred to anger. I draw myself up to my full height. “Mama, if Catherine must marry, let her marry. I believe I never shall marry. Consider, Mama. I do not understand society and it does not understand me. No man finds me charming. Yet I wish to live an intellectual life, so I have decided I will spend my dowry on a suitable school and become a governess.”

“Governessing! Mary, surely you have gone mad!”

“I have not gone mad, I have considered for many months, and I have decided. I shall either be an old maid in your house, endlessly making extracts and embroidering pincushions, or I shall be a governess and serve as a pattern for other young ladies. Perhaps Lydia’s dreadful fate could have been prevented with more moral instruction! Mama, cannot you see the rationality of my argument?”

“It is completely mad! Madness, I say!”

“I will not permit it,” states Papa.

I must clench my teeth together to avoid some vulgar display of tears or other emotion. Gathering my skirts, I run up the stairs, close the door to my bedroom and look—not at the extracts nor the books nor at the governess advertisement—but at the window. And the paper and ink. If only there were some way to address Parson Brown, alleviate with the balm of friendship and consolation whatever pain, beyond my dim comprehension, that I have caused him.


	6. VI

“Dearest Parson Brown,” I begin. I rise, pace about the room. What to say? I am too restless to compose; instead, I thoroughly empty my drawers of dresses, of jewelry, of pen and ink, all my personal effects, and bring forth my travelling bags, then seat myself and divide it all into like groups. Here are the things I would need should I leave now for Harley Street. It is but a fancy, a wretched impossible fancy…yet this ordering of things always calms my nerves.

When I write, I consider what I shall say carefully and arrange it into the most pleasing order. Yet not this time. I shall write the letter now and reason later, when I have recovered my equanimity. So strange to let the torrent forth…“Dearest Parson Brown,” I begin again on a new piece of paper.

I greatly regret my unfortunate remarks at the dining table tonight. I am entirely aware that I have misspoken and I only wish to heal the wound in your spirit as best I can before the damage has become too great. I know I may give the impression of being cold and heartless, yet I am not. I endeavor to be rational, and in so doing, I express myself in a manner devoid of feeling which, despite even my noblest intentions, is always taken by my peers to be unkindly conceited. I strive towards perfect rationality, and yet I understand that there are such pains that gnaw at the human heart as cannot be described, certainly not by mere ‘high sentiment’. Such it is with my unfortunate sister, and such it must be with you. I cannot understand where such things belong in the desmesnes between manners, raw emotion (I shall not call it ‘sentiment,’ it is too plain and strong for that appellation), moral platitude, and unvarnished truth. And yet, my own confusion on such particulars is no excuse to speak as I did, so I most humbly seek your pardon.

Your conversation was much appreciated to me and I think you a rational sort of person. You cannot know what praise this is, coming from one with little opportunity for such rational conversation. I offer the utmost encouragement to Susanna in her endeavors in school. As to your wife, I cannot pretend to know to what depths your heart has been rocked, yet, I do feel sympathy with you, and I wish not that you forget her in a show of forbearance, but that you remember well, and continue in your tender concern for the children.

I wish that you could think well of me, but, knowing this to be too much to be hoped for in the circumstances, I shall only ask for your forgiveness. 

Sincerely, Mary Bennet

I reread the letter. It is rather charged with sentiments, perhaps in an unseemly way, and yet people are so moved by sentiments! I put the letter aside and return to arranging my bags. I hear Kitty rambling about in the hallway. Thoroughly exhausted, I drop into bed and reach for a candle. I intend to read a manners manual, to greater understand why and how all have erred…

The next morning, I am hardly rested, having still thought and thought into the night. When the postman comes, I meet him out-of-doors and hand him the letter.

***

Once I am more fully awake and rational, I greatly regret what I have written. Those phrases were so very unshaped! Perhaps I should have substituted “hold highly in your esteem when you reflect” for “remember well,” such an unadorned, such an unreasoned manner of discussing human nature. I blush for having expressed myself more like Mama than I ought to. Should not a rational man have the sentiments and passions kept in check by powerful reason? (The same for a rational woman). I have not done so. I fear not so much for Parson Brown’s regard of me as for my self-regard. How shall I live with myself after making such a scene?

Downstairs, Mama continues in her hysterics, launching a lengthy philippic against me as I pour the milk for breakfast. “Why, Mary, why must you be so rude? A perfectly eligible man, and you drove him away! Oh, my poor nerves!” 

“I acknowledge that I have done wrong, Mama,” I mumble. “I feel great pangs of regret.” Catherine looks up, her eyes quite wide.

“Mary.” I contemplate the tablecloth. My shame at the initial slight and the modes of expression in my letter are intermingled in an agonizing way. “Mary,” Catherine continues. “I never hear you speak like that.”

“Do I speak any differently than I always do?”

“I never knew you could admit a wrong.”

“We must admit our wrongs to ourselves before we can seek to adequately redress them,” I posit. At last, I am back in my normal purview of conversation. Catherine tilts her head, eyebrows knit and still in that aspect of awe.

“Well, all the regret in the world does not fix the fact that you have used us all most ill!” perseverates Mama. “What have all your reflections done, I ask?”

“They have produced a letter of apology,” I reply quickly, without forethought.

“A letter?” Mama and Catherine repeat together.

“Yes, I have written and sent a letter.”

“Without permission?”

“I was unaware one needed permission to send a letter.”

“What sorts of things did you say in the letter?” Mama questions.

“I expressed my deep regret at my remarks, and wrote an excessive and unseemly account of my difficulties in society, expressed my sympathies with Mr. Brown and his family, and closed by offering more regrets and a plea for forgiveness. I have unfortunately done this all in a most irrational and un-premeditated way, which I dearly hope will not prove a disappointment to you, and especially to Papa.”

“Mary, he may respond! I must know immediately! Oh, I am in a state! Mary, learned charms? Or Mary, ruined it all? Or saved it all? Such suspense!”

“Do calm yourself, dear, we shan’t know what the fellow thinks until he has expressed it himself,” interpolated Papa.

“When, Mr. Bennet, when? I must know!”

“The Post Office is a reliable institution, dear, so let it do its part. Until then, I am afraid we must suffer the suspense as best we can.”


	7. VII

The next morning, I am first to wake and sift through the mail. And there is a letter written in a heavy, unfamiliar hand—Parson Edward Brown, professes the return address. Feeling somewhat abashed for my secrecy (and relieved that Mama has not been the first to see this letter), I slip it discreetly into my reticule and transport it to my bedroom to read.

Dear Miss Bennet,

I was deeply moved by your letter to me—your apology was sincere, your feelings generous. I confess I did not expect your character to be so decent, yet you have exceeded my expectation. 

May I call upon you tomorrow?

Yours affectionately,

Edward Brown

I hastily remove a paper and write him a hurried confirmation.

The next day, he arrives. Mother threatens her usual hysterics, so I remove Parson Brown to another room. We seat ourselves on a couch and discuss the moral philosophy of the scriptures for a time, his children, and my sisters. He then turns to me, and it is apparent he will make some kind of proposal or address to me:

“My dear Miss Bennet,” he begins. “I would like to make a proposal to you—a proposal that I hope you will not find impertinent. Allow me to properly explain myself. I understand that you wish to become a governess, and that you will be pleased with no other occupation. I am also aware that your family expects you to marry. Therefore, I proffer my hand in marriage, not for the purposes of the sentimental attachments of lovers, nor for the purpose of bearing and bringing up children, but to remove you from your present circumstances in the manner deemed most acceptable by society, to share together in rational conversation, and provide you with new prospects for your development as a governess. Would you—could you accept such a strange marriage proposal?”

I am usually above frivolous displays of emotion, but I am moved nearly to tears. “Why, yes, my dear Parson Brown! Yes! This is that star towards which I have cast my eyes and been faithfully guided for so many years. And…” I discern that I have become carried away in my raptures for moral improvement and forgotten that most significant matter—the acknowledgment of another person’s sentiments. “Parson Brown, I cannot be so dishonest as to say I love you in the way of the poets like Byron, but I greatly appreciate your conversation and your characters and will be pleased to acquire your friendship for these coming years.”

Parson Brown returns a smile to me. “Then it is settled? We will announce our engagement, and I shall write to Harling Street?”

“Yes. You have my utmost gratitude.”

Many sentiments flood my breast in rapid succession. I shall be a governess—I shall be married—I shall leave this dreadful home. I am barely able to restrain myself from running as I exit the sitting room. “Mother, I am to be married to Parson Brown!” Mother begins her usual round of hysterics but I prefer not to remain. As Parson Brown seeks my father’s attention, I ascend the stairs. My luggage is packed, sorted into clothing and papers and books, but this time it is no fancy. I am bound for Harling.


End file.
